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TreeLightsTransport3_1 :07 q… Halloween weekend.

(Well, it certainly seems like Christmas is coming early. We actually put up the Salvation Army’s Tree of Lights on Halloween weekend.) (3 additional cuts)

Spokesperson for the Salvation Army in Omaha, Susan Eustice says if you think putting up your Christmas tree is hard work, you haven’t seen anything yet. The Tree of Lights will be moved from storage on Friday.

TreeLightsTransport2_1 (2) :19 q… by noon.

(The Tree of Lights will leave on Friday the 29th from its home at Main Freight USA and with Omaha Police escort we will arrive at American National Bank around 3:15. About 50 iron workers from Local 21 set up the tree beginning Saturday morning before the sun comes up. We should be done by noon.)

Eustice says this tree takes hours to put together.

TreeLightsTransport2_1 :14 q… November 12th.

Takes about 5 or 6 hours to put this massive tree together and to make sure all of the lights are working. We will be tweaking it for the next couple of weeks in preparation to officially lighting the tree and kick off the Tree of Lights ceremony at 6pm on November 12th.)

This is the largest illuminated tree in the Midwest.

SfxChristmas3_1 :15 q… on November 12th.

(That tree is about six-thousand pounds of steel and it has about 55-thousand led lights and 100 led starbursts. We have to check all those things out and make sure all is working in time for our Tree of Lights kickoff on November 12th.)

The official lighting takes place at American National Bank at the corner of 90th and Dodge Streets in Omaha.

ore than 500 people have logged on to your-health-care-priorities-dot-com to voice their opinions on the health care reform law. State Senator Jeremy Nordquist of Omaha says the responses have been forwarded to all State Senators and the Governor. Nordquist has been reading through the responses. (3 cuts)

website bite 1 1 :21 tax credits

Nordquist admits the people responding to the survey do not think the current health care policy is perfect, but a majority feel many of the provisions are helpful.

With more than 500 people so far logging on to your-health-care-priorities-dot-com, State Senator Jeremy Nordquist of Omaha says Nebraskans opinions on health care reform are being heard. The responses have been forwarded to all State Senators and the Governor. Nordquist has been reading through the responses.

website bite 2 :08 :those provisions

Responses from your-health-care-priorities-dot-com have been forwarded to all State Senators and the Governor.

More than 500 people have logged on to your-health-care-priorities-dot-com to voice their opinions on the health care reform law. State Senator Jeremy Nordquist of Omaha has been reading through the responses.

website bite 3 :15 ur families

Responses from your-health-care-priorities-dot-com have been forwarded to all State Senators and the Governor.

Legislative Candidate Nancy Russell says kids shouldn’t start school until they are six years old. Russell told us, raising the age at which kids can attend school could save the state money.

10-26-10-RUSSELL 1 moms…moms (:15)

Russell is challenging incumbent State Senator Bill Avery in Legislative district 28.

One Legislative candidate thinks kids shouldn’t be going to school as early as they are now. District 28 candidate Nancy Russell told us, kids shouldn’t be allowed to start school until they are at least six years old.

10-26-10-RUSSELL 2 system…system (:10)

Russell says the change could be a cost savings measure for the state. Russell is challenging Lincoln State Senator Bill Avery.

In light of the recent fatalities both on the road and involving trains, emergency officials want to remind Nebraskans to keep away from train tracks when driving. Recently in Fremont, two people have died on train tracks and that’s gotten the attention of railroad safety group Operation Lifesaver. Executive Director Carol Daley says no matter how hard an engineer tries, it takes a certain distance to stop a train. (3 cuts)

10-26-10-Daley 1: :28 :begin a crossing

Daley also says trespassing is a huge problem for railroad workers and the Union Pacific Railroad.

10-26-10-Daley 2: :21 :ticketed or fined

Daley also says children need to be educated about the dangers of playing on train tracks as well.

10-26-10-Daley 3: :14 :stay alive

Operation Lifesaver is a non-profit group started in 1972 to stop deaths and injuries involving trains, pedestrians and the railroad.

More Nebraskans who live in rural areas will be receiving dental care thanks to a $3.5-million dollars in grant funds to the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Dentistry. Dr. Kimberly McFarland is a professor at the College of Dentistry and is the principal investigator on the grants says this will help ease the huge gap in the dental work force in the state. (5 cuts)

RuralDental1_1 :14 q… in need.

(Our dental students currently go out to rural areas of the state but they don’t get a chance to go out as much as we want and this grant will allow us to go out to rural areas of the state and provide direct dental care to patients in need.)

DR. McFarland says students currently participate in rural rotations in clinics in Lexington, Columbus, Sidney, Gering, Chadron, Burwell and North Platte. She says the grant funds will allow the college to expand the number of days students can participate.

RuralDental2_1 :26 q… care for Nebraskans.

(We hope the students can go a little bit more often and hope to add a few more areas. We get requests periodically from clinics across the state. They ask if our students can come and spend time in their community but because of our commitments here at the college, lots of times we are not able to break away and do that. This grant will allow us to go out to those areas and provide more dental care for Nebraskans.)

Dr. McFarland says a key component of one of the grants is designed to promote the use of the statewide tele-health network.

RuralDental6_1 :49 q… in real time.

(A conduit of hospitals, public health departments, community health centers that are connected electronically. That means they can have a computer screen there in the rural community and it is connected back to hospital, the Medical Center in Omaha and they can communicate back and forth. We are going to be developing the dental piece of this. We have inter-oral cameras, little cameras that look like a pen and you can place the camera in the patients mouth and beam that image back to the College of Dentistry in Lincoln or the Pediatric Dental Program in Omaha and receive dental health expertise in real time.)

Dr. McFarland says they will also visit communities to provide preventative care to children.

RuralDental4_1 :31 q… additional communities.

(As a part of this project, we will do a community based sealant program where we take some portable dental equipment and go into schools and perhaps children who needs dental sealants placed on their teeth are located, we can go ahead and do that in their schools. Sealant is a white, plastic coating we put over the back teeth so cavity bugs don’t eat holes in the teeth so we are happy to provide these services in additional communities.)

Dr. McFarland says there are 20 counties in Nebraska that have not dentists whatsoever and 30 others where there is only one or two. Many Nebraskans have to drive two hours to see a dentist.

RuralDental3_1 :20 q… kinds of trends.

(During the next decade in the United States here, approximately two dentists will retire for every one that graduates from dental school so we will see a lot of changes in regards to the number of dentists available to patients and in Nebraska we will see these same kinds of trends.)

Dr. McFarland is hoping that some of their students will decide to practice in these communities.

The grants are from Health Resources Services

The latest report by the Platte Institute for Economic Research shows the more county charges in property tax, the less likely someone will decide to call that place home. Berk Brown is their director of communications and says the Platte Institute conducted a ten year county by county breakdown. (4 cuts)

pERcAPITA1_1 :27 q… in its population.

(When we take a look at the average property tax collections for county level government on a per capita basis and compare that to the growth of each county there is definitely a correlation that the more the county is forced to collect from each individual through property taxes, the more likely the county will see a decline, and actually a pretty large decline, in its population.) (4 cuts)

Brown says what the correlation between lower property tax burdens and increased population indicates is the economically unhealthy action of heavily taxing something that is portable, like where a person lives.

PerCapita2_1 :14 q… in the past.

(When you have to enact higher property taxes, people will simply make the decision to move and with today’s day and age with technology, and everything else, making that move to avoid those higher taxes is so much easier than it was in the past.)

Brown says that is because technology has made working from a home location much easier.

Brown does a comparison.

PerCapita3_1 :37 q… in the state.

(On a per capita basis, the most expensive county to live in is Arthur where they are collecting over 12-thousand dollars a year, per person, in property taxes. It is also one of the least populated with only 340 people living in it as well so they are charging for a family of four, they are looking 5,000 dollars a year in county property taxes as opposed to Douglas County where they are only collecting 700 dollars for a family of four and they are one of the largest and fastest growing counties in the state.)

Douglas County also shows a 10-percent increase in population growth in that 10 year period.

Brown says counties which collected the most property taxes on a per-capita basis saw a huge reduction in their population base in the 10 year period from 2000 to 2009.

PerCapita4_1 :35 q… of population losses.

(One of the most alarming things we have found is how significant the population decline has been in those counties, especially Garden County, a county that has about 23-hundred people in it to begin with, when they are losing 24-percent of their population in a ten year period, it makes the viability of that county very difficult. Actually, Arthur County, the highest taxed, had a 24-percent decline in its population and eventually a community, or a county simply can’t survive with those kind of population losses.)

Of the counties that collected the least amount of property taxes on a per-capita basis, only Dodge County did not see an increase in the population base from 200 to 2009. Dodge County recorded a one-percent drop. Douglas County grew by 10-percent, Lancaster County by 12-percent, Platte County by 3-percent and Adams by 7-percent.

The counties which collected the most property taxes saw these reductions:

Rock – 14-percent drop.
Garden- 24-percent drop.
Wheeler – 14 percent drop.
Hayes- 10-percent drop
Arthur – 24-percent drop.

The Creighton men’s basketball team has been picked to finish fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference preseason poll and center Kenny Lawson Jr. was named the MVC’s Preseason Player of the Year. Wichita State is the overwhelming favorite to win the regular-season title, followed by Missouri State and Northern Iowa, ahead of CU. This is the 11th consecutive season that Creighton has been pegged for a top-four finish, something it has done the past 13 years.

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14th ranked Nebraska getting ready for their matchup with #6 Missouri and the Huskers will see a much improved Tigers defense from year’s past and they are led by sophomore Aldon Smith who had 11.5 sacks last season. He just came back from a fractured fibula and had a 58 yard interception last week. He’s so talented that MU plays him at end, defensive tackle, they’ll drop him into pass coverage. He’ll be a challenge for offensive line coach Barney Cotton.

Barney-1 16 sec.

Aldon Smith following Taylor Martinez, that will be a good matchup.

Lincoln State Senator Amanda Mcgill says the Unicameral has been active in dealing with the issue of illegal immigration in the state. ( 3 cuts)

Mcgill bite 4 :17 :them here

Mcgill criticizes those in Washington for not being as active as they could be on the issue of Illegal Immigration. Mcgill’s opponent in the upcoming election, Tom Dierks of Lincoln, says one of the main reasons he got into the race is illegal immigration.

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Lincoln State Senator Amanda Mcgill’s opponent in the upcoming election, Tom Dierks of Lincoln, says one of the main reasons he got into the race is illegal immigration. Mcgill says the state has done a lot on the issue, but it is up to our representatives in Washington. She says as she knocks on doors in Lincoln, immigration isn’t the number one issue she hears about.

Mcgill bite 3 :11 :as much

Mcgill says she does not support copying the racial profiling aspect of legislation on illegal immigration passed in Arizona.

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Lincoln State Senator Amanda Mcgill says she does not support copying the racial profiling aspect of legislation on illegal immigration passed in Arizona, but does thing the state has acted on the issue.

Mcgill bite 5:19 :around it

Mcgill criticizes those in Washington for not being as active as they could be on the issue of Illegal Immigration. Mcgill’s opponent in the upcoming election, Tom Dierks of Lincoln, says one of the main reasons he got into the race is illegal immigration.

Immigration looks to be a big issue in the upcoming legislative session and the Conservative trying to unseat Amanda Mcgill in Lincoln says he hopes to be a leader on the issue. Tom Dierks says illegal immigration is one of the main reasons he got into the race. (3 cuts)

Tom bite 1 :08 :first place

Dierks says he also supports efforts to not allow automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants born in this country.

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Tom Dierks of Lincoln is running against Amanda Mcgill for a seat in the Unicameral and says illegal immigration is one of the reasons he got into the race. Dierks says we should focus on the businesses that hire Illegal immigrants.

Tom bite 2 :12 :deal too

The candidate says he also supports efforts to not allow automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants born in this country. Dierks is the son of current Nebraska Legislator Cap Dierks of Ewing.

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Immigration looks to be a big issue in the upcoming legislative session and the Conservative trying to unseat Amanda Mcgill in Lincoln says he hopes to be a leader on the issue. Tom Dierks says immigration is one of the main reasons he got into the race. Dierks says he is a supporter of efforts to not allow automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants born in this country.

Tom bite 3 :12 :as well

Dierks says illegal immigration is one of the main reasons he got into the race.